The development means that Mitt Romney is now the certain GOP nominee to take on President Barack Obama in November, as Santorum was his main challenger. While Romney still needs to win several hundred delegates to clinch the nomination, Santorum's departure from the race leaves his path unhindered.

Santorum had canceled two events earlier Tuesday while adding an afternoon event that turned out to be a news conference.

Hogan Gidley, the campaign's communications director, said the two morning events were canceled to allow Santorum and his wife, Karen, to "settle in at home" with 3-year-old daughter Isabella after her weekend hospitalization.

Known as Bella, the child was born with Trisomy 18, a serious chromosomal condition that interferes with development. Half of patients with the condition do not survive past the first week of life, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Campaign aides have acknowledged that Pennsylvania, the state he represented in Congress, is a must-win for his candidacy when it holds its primary on April 24.

Santorum's once double-digit lead there slipped to single digits in a recent poll, and the cancellation of campaign events Monday and again on Tuesday morning stoked media speculation that Santorum might drop out in the face of front-runner Romney's commanding lead.

Meanwhile, a new poll Tuesday shows Romney trailing Obama in a head-to-head matchup, though voters remain split on which presidential contender is best equipped to handle the economy.

The survey, from Washington Post/ABC News, showed 51% of Americans would choose Obama if the election were held now, compared to 44% for Romney.

There isn't one of the republican candidates that I can muster up so much as an ounce of respect for, but Santorum was so far over the top in his positions regarding women's rights and the separation of church and state that his presence in the campaign was nothing more to me than a bad joke.

Now Romney, Gingrich and Paul can duke it out until the latter two run out of funding ... or it actually seeps through their armor-plated heads that their campaigns are going nowhere ... whereupon Romney can lose to Obama in November and maybe ... just MAYBE get something DONE.

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I don't lose sleep over what republicans in general think on just about any issue, but I'd take Ron Paul out of the bag of typical right wing-type of antics, even though he's associated with the tea party, and I don't agree with him on a lot of his positions, I still respect him for his honesty, his intelligence, and I only wish the republican party was more to his liking, an honorable opponent.

Yeah, I couldn't vote for Ron Paul over a random, generic Democrat, but at least he's a little less insane than most of the rest of the Republican field. He knows what he wants, and he's thought it through. I just don't agree with what he wants, so he wouldn't have my vote anyway.

Yet another thing I don't understand about Santorum: When you have a kid that could be here today and gone tomorrow, why do you want to spend all your time being president? I can't even begin to fathom what goes on in that man's head.

OK. Here's another example of "Newspeak" from Orwell's 1984. Someone is going to "suspend" their campaign. Well, no shit sparky! You got your butt wiped. You're beaten, defeated, done, and a loser. It was a nice run while you had it, but in the end, you got your ass whipped. Call it what it is. "I lost. It's over and I'm going home." But, this is not the first example of Orwellian semantic doublespeak games. Huntsman "suspended" his campaign. Cain "suspended" his campaign. Perry "suspended' his campaign. With all these campaigns in suspended animation, I can't wait till October, when they're re-animated and it becomes a total electoral cluster fuck.

Is a simple honest statement in politics these days that damned difficult? "I lost. Thanks to my supporters and goodbye." But that would admit the obvious - defeat. And we sure as hell can't have any honesty in this process.

What's worse, just watch future campaigns. The term "suspend" as applied to them will become standard usage, at least until and unless someone has the cojones to admit that they don't have what it takes to stay in the horse race and WITHDRAWS.

This is an exercise in ego-sparing, the ego being that of the self-important candidate.